“Did any of you consider the Twitch user may have been over the legal age of consent?”
Image credit: Dr Disrespect/YouTube
High-profile streamer Guy “Dr Disrespect” Beahm has returned to YouTube – two months after admitting he exchanged “messages with an individual minor” that “leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate” – accusing critics of a “planned and coordinated attack”, and asking, “Did any of you consider [they] may have been over the legal age of consent?”.
Beahm admitted to conduct that “leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate” with a minor back in June, after Twitch‘s former account director of strategic partnerships, Cody Conners, claimed an unnamed person had been banned from the streaming platform “because [he] got caught sexting a minor”. Those allegations were later directly linked to Beahm by The Verge when the publication spoke with two former Twitch employees.
In a lengthy response at the time, Beahm said, “I can now tell you my side of the story regarding the ban. Were there Twitch Whisper messages with an individual minor back in 2017? The answer is yes. Were there real intentions behind these messages, the answer is absolutely not.”
“These were casual, mutual conversations that sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate,” Beahm continued, “but nothing more. Nothing illegal happened, no pictures were shared, no crimes were committed, I never even met the individual. I went through a lengthy arbitration regarding a civil dispute with Twitch and that case was resolved by a settlement. Let me be clear, it was not a criminal case against me and no criminal charges have ever been brought against me.”
Since that admission, Robert Bowling – who co-founded developer Midnight Society with Beahm – has distanced himself from the streamer, and many long-running partners have terminated their agreements. But now, after a period away from the spotlight, a clearly agitated Beahm has returned in a combative YouTube stream in which he repeatedly accused Conners and “so-called journalists” of a “planned and coordinated attack”. All this, Breahm admits, comes ahead of a 25th September “opportunity” to reapply for partnership on YouTube and re-monetise his previously de-monetised channel.
In a 20-minute diatribe mixing prepared statement and seemingly unplanned outburst, Beahm referred to Conners as a “fucking rat”, insisting he “wasn’t even involved” in the Twitch investigation that would see him banned from the platform. Beahm also repeatedly disputed accusations a minor had been involved in the incident that led to his ban from Twitch, asking, “When you and all these so-called journalists, Cody, fired off your tweets, did any of you consider that the Twitch user may have been over the legal age of consent at the time of the messages?” This is despite the fact Beahm himself previously admitted to sending “Twitch Whisper messages with an individual minor back in 2017”.
Beahm also insisted he “never intended to meet” the user involved in the accusations, and “never made plans to meet at TwitchCon”, instead saying, “I suspect all of you sort of planned and coordinated this attack. These big-time publications, these journalists… act like they’re just gossip channels now, without any real journalism, and real research happening.”
Beahm went on to claim he was deliberately targeted by a former Twitch partner manager who he requested to be replaced because he “didn’t do anything for me… he was never on my channel, he didn’t follow me on Twitter, he wouldn’t even inform us about Twitch Rivals tournaments.” Beahm continued, “Just a few months later, that ex-Twitch partner manager is directly involved in getting me banned. Coincidence? The Twitch user [involved in the case] tells [them] they do not want to report anything to Twitch but this ex Twitch partner manager encourages the user and even directs them to file a report directly with Twitch, even though the user told them clearly that we never physically met anywhere and that no photographs were exchanged.” Beahm does not explain why the former partner manager believed potentially inappropriate behaviour had occurred in the first place.
“I’ll say it again,” Beahm continued. “Neither I nor the Twitch user exchanged any sexually graphic messages or images… I even used the word ‘inappropriate’ purposely, and look how it was defined by everyone, including these defaming articles. I’m sorry but mutual bantering with inappropriate jokes taken out of context should have never led to me getting banned from Twitch.”
Beahm then offered a lengthy explanation of how the report was progressed – wrongly he claims – first to Twitch’s law enforcement response team, and then to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. “As far as I know,” he added, “they didn’t escalate Twitch’s report to law enforcement. Mind you, the same people that made this decision [at Twitch] admitted internally that the messages did not constitute sexting… that the messages did not warrant any child sexual abuse material charge… Twitch makes this decision to terminate my contract and ban me while admitting they never investigated the age of consent in the jurisdiction where the user’s messages were sent and received.”
“I don’t claim to be perfect,” Beahm added toward the end of his statement, “but I also didn’t do all the shit that they’re saying I did. But then that doesn’t make a story, right? They wanted media attention, the media wants controversy, and by sensationalising all this with big inaccurate headlines like ‘sexting’ and ‘sexually explicit’, you all got what you wanted at the expense of [me]. The reality is they wanted to cut down the Doc, plain and simple…. It’s so obvious that certain Twitch executives and employees involved had personal biases against the Doc and used all of these as an opportunity to terminate my contract.”
“I’m not denying the exchange of Whispers,” Beahm concluded. “I’m not denying that to all of you out there. It looks bad. I have no way of knowing if the Twitch user thought our exchange of Whispers was inappropriate. If it was, I apologise. All I know is that I never did what Twitch, Cody Conners, or the public is claiming that I did.”
